


An Eye for an Eye

by GoAwayOlivia



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Red Hood: Lost Days
Genre: Gen, Jason Todd Has PTSD, Jason Todd figuring out how to live after the Joker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28879866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoAwayOlivia/pseuds/GoAwayOlivia
Summary: Unbidden, words of Edmond Dantès spring to his mind: death may be a torture, but it is not an expiation.***A "what-if" for that one scene in Lost Days where Jason is going to blow up the Batmobile with Bruce inside it.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 107





	An Eye for an Eye

**Author's Note:**

> So I've officially started year 2 of my clinical mental health counseling master's program, and instead of, you know, writing the papers I'm supposed to be writing, I started digging around in my old files. I think it's been almost 2 years since I've read anything in this fandom, but I've been missing Jason lately so I've started going back through some of my old, never-posted stuff. I also might start reading some batfam stories again, because I miss it!
> 
> Anyway, I always thought this scene in Lost Days was powerful, and wanted to explore it a little with some gratuitous Count of Monte Cristo thrown in because I'm me. Enjoy!

His heart pounds loudly in his ears. Everything is set. The bomb is in place under the Batmobile. Batman won’t notice anything out of place. He won’t think twice before getting in the car, thinking it’s untouchable. Thinking _he’s_ untouchable. But Jason will prove him wrong. He’ll kill him. And the score will be settled and then maybe the screaming in his head will finally stop. Then maybe everything will stop hurting so damn bad.

All he has is hope.

He clutches the detonator tight in his fist and doesn’t move an inch, perched in the adjacent building, watching through the slats of the boarded up window, waiting impatiently for Batman to show.

It takes a while, but finally Bruce is there, dropping into the alley, bigger than life just like he’s always been. Just seeing him has the fury igniting in Jason’s gut all over again. How could he? How could he pretend he cared all that time and then just let the clown get away with everything? How could he pretend that Jason had _mattered_? That he’d meant something to him? He hadn’t. He’d just been a stray to Bruce. Easily replaceable. And Batman is just as bad. He isn’t what the world needs. Someone who pretends to care, someone who just puts the monsters in timeout, knowing full well that they’re going to get out again and hurt more people.

No. He failed the city. He failed _him_. He shouldn’t be allowed to live… he _shouldn’t_ …

Jason’s thumb hovers over the trigger as he watches Bruce get in the car. It hovers as the car started up, and it stays hovering as Bruce drives away into the night.

It takes a full five minutes after the roar of the engine has died away before he loosens his grip and puts the trigger down. He’s drowning, his mind swimming in syrup with a soundtrack of the Joker’s manic laughter and his own screams.

He isn’t…

He didn’t…

He didn’t pull the trigger.

_Why_? He was ready. There was no reason not to. He worked, he planned, everything went off without a hitch, exactly like he intended. And yet, Bruce is still alive.

Suddenly his knees wobble like jelly and Jason staggers into a sitting position on the dusty, dirty floor. He didn’t kill Bruce. All that work, all that planning, and Bruce isn’t dead. Does he not want Bruce dead? He’d abandoned him! He’d forgotten him! He’d _forsaken_ him by letting his murderer live. By letting the Joker kill even more people after he’d killed Jason. His _son_.

Unbidden, words of Edmond Dantès spring to his mind: _death may be a torture, but it is not an expiation._

A bitter and slightly hysterical laugh tumbles from his mouth because he remembers reading _The Count of Monte Cristo_. He remembers sitting in the library with Bruce by his side, reading it together. He remembers lengthy discussions at dinner over the Count’s plots, the intricacies, the brilliance, the drive and determination. He remembers being enraptured, hanging on the Count’s every move.

He remembers the man’s words to the son of one of the monsters who took everything from him. Is death enough of a punishment? Is a quick moment of pain followed by the silence of death reparation for a wound that will never close? Never heal? No.

“… _in return for a slow, profound, eternal torture, I would give back the same, were it possible; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth…”_

He laughs again, even more hysterically.

_God_.

Bruce isn’t the one who took everything from him. He isn’t the one who tortured him and killed him. But he is the one who buried him and forgot him. He is the one who let his murderer go and replaced him with someone else. He is the one who abandoned him.

Death isn’t an expiation.

Bruce buried, forgot, and abandoned him and his memory. So maybe it’s only right he do the same to Bruce. It’s exactly what the man deserves.

He doesn’t want to waste time and effort on him. The man doesn’t deserve it. And what kind of revenge would killing him be anyway? No, Jason wants to show him _exactly_ why he never should have forgotten him in the first place. He wants to prove that he is better than Bruce will ever be. He wants to take Batman’s pointless crusade and do it _right_. And not just in Gotham, but the whole world over. He wants to _really_ help people who are suffering. He wants to stop people that hurt others. Show them that even if the whole damn world lets them get away with it, there’s one person who will hunt them down to the ends of the earth and make them pay. Screw Gotham. Screw Bruce. Screw Batman. He’s going to be what Batman should have been all along. He’s…

…He’s got a lot of work to do.

Jason stands, pulling his burner phone from his pocket. He calls Talia.

“Jason,” she greets after just one ring. She sounds surprised to hear from him, but also wary. There’s no doubt she knows exactly what city he’s in, though he does doubt she knows exactly what he’s been up to.

“I need teachers,” he declares immediately. “And a ride out of Gotham.”

There’s a brief pause, but she doesn’t ask him why or what he’s planning. Not yet, anyway. Instead, she answers, “The docks. Half an hour.”

He ends the call, grabs his bag and is out of the building in a flash. An hour later, when he leaves Gotham, he has no plans of ever coming back.


End file.
